The ESU brings together and empowers people of different languages and cultures.

Impressions from IPSC 2016 by our winner Gustavs Ēvalds

IPSC 2016 was eye-opening, inspiring and immensely fun. Looking back, while I feel that I could have done more regarding my performance, there isn’t a thing that I would change.

The whole event just draws you in and dictates the pace. Every day passes in an instant -Shakespeare’s Globe, workshops, “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time”, all the sight-seeing – each day you learn something new and beneficial. And while all of it is great, the best part is the interaction – the cultural exchange and discussion, which happens in the midst of it all. After a few days you feel like you have known all of the participants for a few years, not days. Everyone is befriending each other and those friendships can be clearly seen on the competition day – there are many exchanges of good wishes and encouragements both before and after the speeches.

Thinking back, even though I felt sorry for not getting through to the semi-finals, at the same time I felt extremely glad that multiple of my friends had made it in. And I feel like that is one of the biggest gains from this competition – friendships across nations, across cultures and across the world. The experience you take home with you both as a public speaker and as a person is enormous. It was an amazing experience and I wish to meet all of them again someday.